Misery loves company
by topoftherock
Summary: Maryse basically kicks Jace out of the institute with her words, and Jace is not to happy with it. Jace's thoughts. Set in the beginning of City of Ashes


Thank you so much kiwichick11! She is AWESOME! You should check out her stories they are totally worth the read!

Disclaimer: this is a nonprofit story and all the characters belong to Cassandra Clare.

Enjoy :)

"_You are an arrow shot directly into the heart of the clave, Jace. You are Valentine_'_s arrow. Whether you know it or not." _

Those words- those cruel words- played over and over in his mind. "You are Valentine's arrow." Jace was still staring at the wall of the library while those four words echoed around his head. How wrong they were; how wrong Maryse was. Jace knew his adoptive mother no longer trusted him. The fact that she would say such things to him made his anger level rise. Did she not realize that he had lived with her for almost half his life?

Jace couldn't stay in the Institute any longer. He had to get out. Turning on his heel, he swiftly made his way out of the library and headed towards the sanctuary of his room without coming across another soul.

'_Probably hiding from the psychopath's son,_' Jace thought bitterly as he wrenched open the door to his bedroom. He needed something to distract him.

He needed something to break. Something to kill.

And he needed it now.

He searched his room for something that would pacify him. He needed to distract himself from his thoughts; those dark thoughts that threatened to drown him. He needed to pummel something, anything.

And then he saw it. The shard of glass from the portal was sitting innocently on the corner of his bed taunting him with the reflection of his childhood home.

So close. Yet so far.

_ Valentine is my father_.

With that thought, Jace's simmering anger exploded with all the ferocity of a volcano. Not giving a second thought to his next course of action, Jace ran straight for the window opposite him. Disregarding his own safety, Jace jumped out the window and briefly reveled in the rushing wind that greeted him. Lithe as a cat, Jace landed on the pavement with barely a jolt and with a sudden burst of adrenaline coursing through his veins, he took off.

To where, he knew not. He just had to get out. He had to get away from Maryse's glares and cold words. The sounds of the city life screamed in his ears as he thundered past pedestrians, buildings and cars. Horns honked and people screamed profanities at him as he dodged, weaved and pushed aside anyone standing in his way. He was angry, he was pissed off, and he felt that the rest of the world should feel as badly as he did.

Everything around him was crumbling; his family and his faith.

His family no longer trusted him, could no longer look at him with love. He was mad at Maryse for not trusting him when he was telling the truth. He was annoyed that he was the one that had to reassure Maryse, when it should have been the other way around.

His faith in what he had always believed to be true- his father had been murdered. His father _should_ be dead. He was angry at his father for- NO!

_ It's Valentine_!

He was angry at the man who had raised him for escaping into the portal and then for smashing it to pieces. Pieces that represented how messed up his life had become since that night. He had questions- thousands of them. But because of his father's- _Valentine's_- actions, Jace could not follow. He could not get the answers to the nightmares that had plagued him half his life about his father's murder.

And now he was alive.

Deep down he tried to hate Valentine, but Jace just couldn't make himself hate the man that raised him for the first ten years of his life. As he flew past a park with young children running around and laughing, images flashed through Jace's mind of Maryse's icy cold stare and accusing tone when he could not say he hated his father. That he hated Valentine.

He hated how Maryse did not believe him enough to keep him. Instead she had told him to never darken her doorstep again. Where was he supposed to go? He wished time would freeze so he could figure out how to fix everything that happened.

So instead, he was running.

Jace desperately wanted to see Clary, the one person that made him feel balanced and complete. He knew this was not possible, and even thinking about Clary made him sick. He didn't think he would be able to handle Clay's rejection on the same day as being thrown out by Maryse.

Jace knew he could keep running all day. He had put a good ten block between himself and the Institute, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. He continued running as the blind rage refused to burn out.

Demons. He needed demons.

He needed to punch something; he needed to inflict pain and he needed to feel pain. Without paying attention to where he had been running, Jace pulled up short as he rounded a corner and came to a dead end. Cursing and kicking the closes thing to him- the wall- Jace let out a harsh grunt as pain shot up his left leg. It satisfied his need to feel pain, but he still had rage bubbling away below the surface.

He had to keep running. Turning on his heel, Jace gave a quick cursory glance around his environment and realized with a jolt that he had not glamored himself. The people of Manhatten were staring at his strange long black coat and were eyeing him with unease evident on their faces. Dismissing the useless mundanes, Jace took off again at a sprint and barely dodged people on the crowded street. The faster he ran and the further away he got, the more the anger seemed to ease.

As he neared the part of town frequented by Downworlder's, Jace realized that he either needed a really good fight or to get closure with Maryse or Valentine. Jace bitterly acknowledged that the latter wouldn't be happening anytime soon since he had no clue how to get to Idris without a member of the Clave. He wasn't in the mood to be chewed out again by Maryse so getting closure from his adoptive mother was out as well. With so many downworlder's in this part of town, Jace realized that he would be lucky to pick a fight with a demon.

From the corner of his eye, Jace recognized the entrance to the city's underground werewolf bar The Hunter's Moon. If he could not find a decent demon to fight, he was sure to find a moody werewolf to piss off. And they often put up the best fights.

After all his anger, and all his running, he figured it must be fate; he could not see Clary, he could not talk to Maryse, and Alec and Isabelle were probably under orders not to talk to him. Luke was the pack leader of the city's werewolves and Jace knew the older man would make an appearance if there was a disturbance at the bar.

With a smirk, Jace strutted through the door into the dingy bar with an evil glint to his eye. He had the opportunity to pick a fight _and_ speak to someone who knew what he was going through. Suddenly, his day was looking a little brighter.

Thanks for reading!


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